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STORIES TELLING TRUTH

8/29/2021

Barbara Brown Taylor is an Episcopal priest who served in parish ministry for years, then left parish work to teach full-time. Then several years ago she left active ministry, while still retaining her priesthood, to explore who she is and who God is. She has written three books since that last move exploring her reasons and what she’s learned. She is an incredible writer and one of the people I read over and over again.

But I’m not here to talk about her today, but the person she speaks of in a quote of hers that is our starting point today.

I’m not sure of the exact source of this quote. This is what she says:

When I forget the power of the word, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget the deep relief of telling the truth, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget to look for the holiness all around me, I read Frederick Buechner. When I forget why the gospel matters, I read Frederick Buechner.

While I am not even close to being a writer of Taylor’s stature, I do share her passion for the magic of Frederick Buechner’s words. Anyone who has sat in my church over the years and listened to me preach can attest to that. I probably quote Buechner more than anyone out there. It warms my heart that someone I respect as much as I do Barbara Brown Taylor respects this man this much.

Well into his mid-nineties now, Buechner’s most recent work was published in 2017, but in his lifetime, so far, his has been a novelist, essayist, preacher, teacher, and theologian, as well as an ordained Presbyterian minister. But more than any of these – or maybe all of these put together – he is an amazing storyteller and it is his way of putting words together and his style of storytelling that I’m looking to find in scripture today.

Buechner respects words and especially the word of God:

Our days are full of nonsense, and yet not, because it is precisely into the nonsense of our days that God speaks to us words of great significance—not words that are written in the stars but words that are written into the raw stuff and nonsense of our days, which are not nonsense just because God speaks into the midst of them.

Amazing storytellers such as Buechner tell stories in such a way that they ‘stick’. Their stories go to your mind, of course, but they go somewhere a lot deeper. They go to your heart and your soul and you feel those stories taking root there and you know they’re going to stay. These become the stories you remember throughout your life.

Buechner once wrote:

Words written fifty years ago, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, can have as much power today as ever they had it then to come alive for us and in us and to make us more alive within ourselves. That, I suppose, is the final mystery as well as the final power of words: That not even across great distances of time and space do they ever lose their capacity for becoming incarnate.

The great tellers of stories speak a truth to us – a truth that may or may not be entirely factual, but yet is true. The Bible is as full of great stories as any piece of modern literature. Take, for instance, the biblical story of the Great Flood or Noah’s Ark. This is not a story of scientific or historical fact. It’s a story that was lifted almost intact from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a story from Mesopotamia that was already ancient when the book of Genesis was written down.

The Genesis story is filled with internal inconsistencies -- saying something in one place and then a little further on, saying something else that contradicts the first statement -- and in spite of the best efforts of literalist believers today, it simply is not factual. But what it is, is true. It is a story that tells a truth about what happens when we drift from our deep connections to the divinity that guides our lives. And it’s a whopping good story, because we all remember it. People have been remembering it for 3000 years or so.

We remember our sense of horror when we realized that all the animals except those on the ark were killed, and the even worse realization that all the people were killed, too, and that somehow that handful left on the ark just wasn’t enough to make us feel better about it all. And we especially remember the promise of the rainbow – God’s promise to never do this again. This is a story that sticks to our bones.

The earliest writers of the Bible understood this – their teachings were not meant just for the moment, but were meant to stay. Listen to their determination to be remembered in one of the first iterations of the Great Commandment as found in Deuteronomy:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise. Bind them as a sign on your hand, fix them as an emblem on your forehead, and write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

In other words, remember this – make it part of yourself.

At one point in the gospels, Jesus is asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he told them that the kingdom of God was already among them. In every word spoken by the prophets in the past and in every word Jesus spoke to them while he was right there with them, the kingdom of God was planted deeply into every human soul and was with and within them right at that very moment.

Jesus himself, of course, was one of the master-storytellers. All those parables he used are just stories – stories told so well that we learn them and remember them and we adjust our thinking to match the revelations we hear in those stories. One of my professors once told me that parables are stories that make us go “huh.”

This is Buechner again, on the power of words:

When words tell of virtue and nobility, when they move closer to that truth and gentleness of spirit by which we become fully human, the reading of them is sacramental; and a library is as holy a place as any temple is holy because through the words which are treasured in it the Word itself becomes flesh again and again and dwells among us and within us, full of grace and truth.

So, since my goal here has been to connect the life-altering words of writers such as Buechner to the life-altering words of scripture, I’m going to shift to some books some of you may not be familiar with, the four Books of Maccabees. These deuterocanonical books are in the Apocryphal books included in some bibles but not in others.

They tell the story of a group of Jewish rebels who fought and won their freedom from the Seleucid empire – descendants of the Greeks who had conquered the near east under Alexander the Great. The Maccabees and those who fought with them broke free and created a free Judea once again – free until it was eventually conquered by the Romans who remained there through Jesus’ day.

I will let the writer of Second Maccabees have the final word here. His words sound quite Shakespearean to me, proving, once again I guess, the amazing power of words down through diverse centuries:

I will here end my story. If it is well told and to the point, that is what I myself desired; if it is poorly done and mediocre, that was the best I could do. For just as it is harmful to drink wine alone, or, again, to drink water alone, while wine mixed with water is sweet and delicious and enhances one’s enjoyment, so also the style of the story delights the ears of those who read the work. And here will be the end.

Very Shakespearean.

Thanks be to God,

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HOLY AS A DAY IS SPENT

8/22/2021

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Today’s message comes from a song which has been a favorite for several years now. I cannot legally quote you all the song lyrics without infringing on copyright laws, which I don’t want to do – first, because I am basically a law-abiding person, and secondly, because my husband is a songwriter, and several friends as well, and I know how copyright laws protect artistic creators from having their work just appropriated by others.

So – what I can do is tell you that the piece is titled “Holy as a Day is Spent” and it is written and performed by singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer. You can Google it or find it on YouTube. I recommend you do. It absolutely is worth listening to.

I can describe her song as a litany of everyday activities – from washing dishes to putting on warm socks to conversations with the check-out girl to folding sheets to frying eggs. It all sounds quite boring when I list it out this way but in Newcomer’s lovely poetry it paints a beautiful life.

She wraps it up in my favorite line (which I can quote because it’s under 25 words) -- It's all a part of a sacrament as holy as a day is spent.

Her point – I believe – and mine in this message is that living is a holy activity and that living with an active awareness of that holiness is the best of all.

I learned the truth of this for myself years ago when my family was young and money was in short supply. I was a stay-at-home mom because, as with so many others, then and still, there were no jobs in our region that paid enough to offset the cost of child care. So I set my own job as chief nutritionist, finding ways to give my family the most healthy food on a tight budget.

I canned fruits that came my way. I made jam and yogurt and granola. One of the things I did was bake bread. We ate lots of bread – whole grains, nut bread, fruit breads – anything I could come up with -- and somewhere along the way I took all those foods that were going to feed my family, and I began to handle them with something like reverence and gratitude. It was a revelation to me.

My everyday tasks still include some of these things today – but they also include writing sermons and publishing newsletters, and leading worship, and making phone calls and all the odd things that pastors do. Your everyday tasks may involve driving a truck, or teaching children in a schoolroom, or waiting tables, or checking folks out at the grocery store, or writing computer code.

Whatever it is that is involved in your everyday tasks and your everyday things can still be holy if you open the eyes of your heart and soul and see them as such.

If you go back to the beginnings of our belief system you find that scripture suggests we were not created to be kings and queens lying around doing nothing. We were created to be caretakers for a garden. And then to care for creatures everywhere. That’s ordinary work – all different kinds. It’s not glamorous, but that’s what we are here for.

When I went to the scriptures to see what they had to say about everyday work, I didn’t find much. There was a lot about work to obey somebody’s rules, but not much about work for the sake of the work.

Jesus didn’t spend much (if any) time telling people what work to do – but almost every story, every parable he used to teach was set in the context of ordinary people doing ordinary work. Matthew 13 for instance has a bunch of these in just one chapter.

The Parable of the Seeds was a story about a farmer out doing what a farmer does – sowing seed for his next crop. The story of the One Lost Sheep was a story of a shepherd doing what a shepherd does – caring for all his sheep, even the one who had wandered off. The Parable of the Yeast that multiplies six times over when it is mixed with flour is a story of a woman making bread – a whole lot of bread if she really did use sixty pounds of flour as the story says.

The people in the stories we hear of Jesus are all ordinary people – fisherfolk, tax collectors, vineyard owners, working scribes, beggars, house-wives, even soldiers – all doing the ordinary things of their lives. All doing the holy things of their holy lives.

Probably the single biggest collection of ordinary people is found in the Beatitudes – again, Matthew, this time chapter 5. The poor in spirit, those who mourn, the hungry, the merciful, the peacemakers, the pure of heart – not heroes or national figures -- just people living their ordinary people lives. These ordinary people are the ones Jesus goes out to speak with, to teach, to convince that they – ordinary as they are – are loved deeply by the one Jesus calls Father.

We are not called to what the world calls greatness. We are called to what God calls goodness. I’m not saying we shouldn’t sometimes strive for something more. I am saying we should not scorn the simple things, the everyday things – the holy things that are, and Carrie Newcomer puts it, all a part of a sacrament as holy as a day is spent. We should, indeed recognize these things as our gift to God as we live out this sacrament we call our everyday lives – as we are called to be -- as God created us to be.

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Things That Catch My Attention: "GOOD FOR US, GOOD FOR ALL?"

8/15/2021

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In the early 1950’s there was a quote that became quite popular – “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.” Except, as is often the case, it turns out that wasn’t quite how the actual quote went. The speaker was Charles Erwin, president of GM at the time and the occasion was his confirmation hearing when he was nominated as Secretary of Defense by President Dwight Eisenhower. What he actually said there was, “for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.”

Now, I have little argument with the first half of his statement – if our country is flourishing then, yes, that’s going to be good for General Motors or most any company. But his “vice versa” is the part that got remembered and there is so much wrong with that arrangement of the words. If General Motors or any other large corporation flourishes that will be good for their shareholders, and possibly for their employees, but it could equally be an economic and environmental disaster for many others and for the earth itself. It is not an equal trade-off.

In later years very few remembered his actual words, while the mis-quote became a standard part of the American lexicon for the ‘50’s. So, why am I nattering on about General Motors in my Sunday message? I’ve brought that forward today because this famous saying is in some ways still the prevailing attitude for much of the United States and the rest of the industrialized world, but even more importantly because it is the very antithesis of the quote I do want to talk about here.

This one comes from Wendell Berry, who is a writer often listed as an “essayist, environmental activist, cultural critic, and farmer.” He is, indeed, every one of these things, but I love the fact that when asked to describe himself, he lists “farmer” first. He’s also one of my personal heroes. This quote from my hang-onto-for-someday file comes from one of his books of essays, The Long-Legged House. It reads like this:

“We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

The idea that the earth might exist as something more than an object from which big corporations can pull endless money – that creation has value in and of itself – value other than monetary -- is the opposite of the rampant corporatism of the 50’s, and the 80’s, and today, for that matter. Likewise, the idea that our good is the only good that matters is being exposed more and more for the falsehood it is.

Now it might seem at first hearing that the choice between a physical earth and a corporation is purely a business decision. Or maybe a political one. But when we remind ourselves (which we seem to need to do quite often) that creation includes humankind – when we put actual human lives into the equation – suddenly the value of creation appears to increase – or, at least, we surely hope it does.

We have lived our lives by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us.

In order to pull this off we will first need to learn and accept that the rest of the world, outside our own little bubble, has value. Other countries, other beliefs, other creatures, other cultures – they all matter and we have no right to damage them just to support our ways of living. Some third world country on the other side of the planet should not be decimated just because it is discovered to have supplies of an obscure mineral that companies here use to produce our next electronic gadget.

In searching to see what, if anything, scripture might have to offer us on this question I almost immediately found that Jesus makes it abundantly clear that this is an issue of the human soul, and therefore, a moral and ethical issue. Matthew 23:4, for instance, in speaking about those who are in powerful positions, reads: They tie onto people's backs loads that are heavy and hard to carry, yet they aren't willing even to lift a finger to help them carry those loads.

But it is in another teaching from Jesus that we learn that this uneven distribution of power and wealth – and caring -- is not only a sin but a grievous and harmful failing that harms every one of us. This reading comes from Luke’s gospel, chapter 12, verses 22-32. It’s a little long because I chose The Message version today because it does the best job of making Jesus’ point clear, and The Message tends to be a little wordy – but good.

Jesus spoke with his disciples. “Don’t fuss about what’s on the table at mealtimes or if the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your inner life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the ravens, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, carefree in the care of God. And you count far more.

Has anyone by fussing before the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? If fussing can’t even do that, why fuss at all? Walk into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They don’t fuss with their appearance—but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them. If God gives such attention to the wildflowers, most of them never even seen, don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you?

“What I’m trying to do here is get you to relax, not be so preoccupied with getting so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep yourself in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met. Don’t be afraid of missing out. You’re my dearest friends! The Father wants to give you the very kingdom itself.

This is such a rich reading. So much wisdom – and love -- in its three paragraphs. While we here may be worrying about wealth and power, God cares about wildflowers and birds – and people. People – you and me – who are missing so much of what truly matters – the beauty and the grace that surround us.

While we worry about what we eat, we’re missing the gift of trusting God. While we worry about what we’ll wear and how we’ll look compared to others we’re missing the incredible beauty with which God clothes even the most seemingly insignificant things around us. And I’m pretty certain God would very much like us to notice.

If we have been wrong about what is truly important – and we have consistently been wrong about a great many things -- then, again, in Berry’s words, “we must change our lives so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption, that what is good for the world will be good for us. And that requires that we make the effort to know the world and learn what is good for it.”

And we will be blessed in the learning.

Amen.

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TO SPEAK A BETTER STORY

8/8/2021

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“We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them.”

I’ve been intrigued with this quote from the first time I ran into it. I don’t remember where or when, just that it has intrigued me ever since. The author is Donald Miller and it comes from his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.

Miller is an author, obviously – writing in two different areas. He is CEO of a marketing company and has written several books on that topic, but he is also well known in spirituality circles for his highly personal stories of spiritual experience while not particularly a church-goer.

He is probably best known for his book Blue Like Jazz which has as its sub-title, Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. Full disclosure here – I have not yet read either of these books. I’ve attempted Blue Like Jazz twice but ended up putting it down both times. It just didn’t work for me at the moment. I do, however, know people who love this book. I’ll try again one of these days.

But it is this one quote that intrigues me -- it has attached itself to my mind like a stickle-burr and refuses to let go. “We live in a world where bad stories are told that life doesn't mean anything and humanity has no great purpose.” I doubt that any one of us could dispute this statement. Turn on the TV, scan the internet, read a newspaper – the news that surrounds us is horrible. A mutating pandemic, wildfires, floods, wars, mindless shootings, family members and random strangers addicted to political lies. I could, unfortunately, go on and on.

If we listen to nothing but this constant negative babble, we too easily come to believe that it’s all true and that there is little hope. The reason all this negativity affects us so is that the bulk of it is delivered in the form of stories – someone’s story about what is happening, stories about someone’s suffering, someone’s anger – and stories affect us much more deeply than straight facts.

Give us a recitation of facts and we might listen to them or not. Tell us a story and we can all be moved to another place, another time, another way of seeing things. There is a reason that Scripture shows us so many examples of Jesus teaching with parables.

But a parable is a special kind of story. A parable starts out like an old familiar tale – one we’ve heard a dozen times – but before we know it, we find ourselves, mouth agape, facing a conclusion we absolutely did not expect. When we, today, for instance, hear the story of the Good Samaritan, we aren’t surprised by the ending because the biblical version is the only one we’ve ever known – and we probably have never even seen a Samaritan -- but Jesus’ original hearers would have been deeply shocked by its ending because one of the deep-set tenets of their lives was that Samaritans were horrible, blasphemous people without an ounce of good to be found in them. How could a Samaritan possibly be the good guy of this story?

Jesus told a story about a badly injured man who needed help and was given that help by another man who looked past societal and religious expectations and helped him – (and if Jews hated Samaritans then it is equally true that Samaritans hated the Jews – this story goes both directions.) And this is the story we still tell 2000 years later – one that tells us we don’t have to remain stuck in the hatreds others try to force on us. Jesus gave us a better story than the expected one.

I read a brief story just this morning online about someone who had done some small thing, not expecting any praise for it, but who later received a note from a complete stranger thanking her because “you made a difference in my life” with the simple “unimportant” thing she did. This person made a difference by telling a different story – a better story. And this story made a light in my day, as well.

Every one of us has the choice to repeat the bad stories told us or to speak a better story, as Miller puts it. Or as St. Paul put it in his Letter to the Philippians: Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—keep your mind on these things.

Scripture is made up of stories. It doesn’t say a whole lot about stories, it just is stories. There are bad scripture stories – stories of violence and selfishness that then use God as their justification for the terrible things done that go without punishment. Those are bad stories – I don’t care that they are in the Bible.

But there are so many good stories, stories of love and promise and hope. These are the stories we remember most – the ones we were taught in Sunday School that seem to stick with us our whole lives. The stories of Jesus are still what bring us here today to be seeking to learn more. These are the good stories, the better stories, the ones that shine light into the darkness.

We can tell good stories, too. Sure, we can repeat the latest scandal or the latest lie, or we can listen for the goodness that is all around us – it really is – and we can repeat the story of that goodness, that kindness. We all long for that kind of story – ones that lift us up rather than dragging us down. It could be something on a world scale or simply some small kindness. It could be a Jesus parable or something you overheard at the grocery store. The world is full of good stories.

Possibly one of the most quoted lines from J.R.R. Tolkien’s great Lord of the Rings saga (certainly one of the greater stories told in our time) is this, from The Two Towers, I believe – Sam encouraging a discouraged Frodo: “It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you.”

The stories that stay with us are the ones that tell us there is hope, and that kindness can indeed be found in this world. If it seems hard to find then we ourselves can be that kindness, that hope.

"We live in a world where bad stories are told...It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story.”

Tell your own stories of goodness – even the ones as simple as holding the door and exchanging an honest smile with a stranger. Tell them in your words, your actions, your thoughts. The world will be better for it – and so will you.

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GRACE BATS LAST

8/1/2021

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Among the 'Things that Catch my Attention', this one never made it to my junk drawer file, but the triggering event it occurred only recently and has since trailed off in all sorts of directions in my mind.

I am a member of a facebook group which consists of clergy from the Disciples of Christ – of which I am one. It’s one of those groups were you can share questions, ask for information, and pass around ideas and discussions. One recent discussion dealt with the “rules” around baptism and communion.

This discussion went on for several days and in that context one person told a brief story about Dorothy Day who, if you’re not familiar with her, was a social activist perhaps best known for being one of the co-founders of the Catholic Worker Movement in the 1930’s. She worked for non-violence and for justice for the poor and homeless her whole life. A very earthly saint.

The story that was told was about a time when she was in jail – a fairly common event in her life – where she was fasting in protest, but broke that fast in order to share bread with a starving friend.

When I read that I was immediately reminded of one of my favorite stories about St. Francis. The movement which would become the Franciscan orders (there are several) began, as such things do, with a group of idealistic young friends following Francis and choosing to live his life of extreme poverty. They owned nothing and had to beg for even the food they ate. There was no “monastic rule” – there were basically no rules at all at the beginning --- except to live freely and share everything and rejoice in loving and caring for those who were even poorer than they.

Once when Francis had declared a fast, for some reason, he was disturbed at night by the sound of weeping. Following the sound he discovered one of the young brothers in the kitchen eating – eating and weeping at his failure to stick with the fast because of his hunger. According to one version, Francis' response was to send the young brother out to gather greens and herbs to add to the food while Francis woke the other brothers to come and join them and eat with the weeping brother, so that if he sinned he would not do so alone, but surrounded by those who loved him enough to sin with him.

While thinking about the Dorothy Day version and the St. Francis version, I realized that this is very much a Jesus sort of story as well so I pulled up my on-line Bible and went looking through the gospels. As expected, I found quite a few bits that meshed well with the two stories, but this one seemed to fit them best.

It’s from Mark 2: 23-28:
One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some heads of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” [because picking the grain to munch on was technically “working” which was strictly forbidden on the Sabbath]

He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

Then he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humans for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Throughout the gospels Jesus continually scandalizes and outrages the Pharisees by blithely ignoring their “rules” when he believes his owns actions are the more righteous choice., such as healing someone suffering even if it happens to be on the Sabbath day.

He explains this behavior, somewhat, when he is asked to say which is the greatest of the commandments and he answers with a hierarchy of importance. “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest, and a second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the others are contained within these two.”

In our world, there are rules that are important – ones meant to keep us safe and healthy and living well in community – stop for red lights, don’t steal from others. There are also rules that exist simply to control others, some necessary, perhaps, others not. There are lots of these, unfortunately. It’s an interesting exercise to figure out just who most of the control rules are actually designed to control.

And then there are the “rules” that aren’t even actually rules at all, but just one person’s opinion on how things “should” be. These, even more unfortunately, are probably the most plentiful. Every body has rules about what everyone else “should” do.

But Jesus’ 2-point hierarchy of “shoulds” allows us to see quite clearly which rules fall in the “must do” category – stopping for red lights is actually loving our neighbor as ourselves. Allowing others to freely love who they love is in the same category.

‘Don’t casually destroy the earth with your greed and laziness’ falls into the Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind category, because the earth belongs to God, not us. ‘Women must wear high heels and men must wear neckties’ falls into the ‘rules to control others’ category – or maybe even the someone’s personal opinion category.

‘Some human races are less important than others’ is nothing more than someone’s ignorant opinion and therefore can be freely disregarded as a rule.

In the end, what most of us want more than rules is grace, because grace is what we rely on more than rules – whether we are willing to acknowledge it to ourselves or not. Grace is what gets us forgiven and given a second – or third – or fourth chance when we ourselves are cruel or lazy or act like jerks.

As put in the wonderful words of Anne Lamott, “The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Go figure. The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world, helps us breathe again and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and each other. And remember — grace always bats last’.

The most important thing to remember about both the number 1 and number 2 commandments Jesus claimed is that both are based in love – always love.....That, and grace bats last.

Thanks be to God.

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STORIES TELLING TRUTH

HOLY AS A DAY IS SPENT

Things That Catch My Attention: "GOOD FOR US, GOOD FOR ALL?"

TO SPEAK A BETTER STORY

GRACE BATS LAST

Rev. Cherie Marckx

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